


Aspect Guide- Stage

by tradingcardGamer (gnostechnician)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Replay Value AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-22
Updated: 2013-07-22
Packaged: 2017-12-21 00:36:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/893740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gnostechnician/pseuds/tradingcardGamer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which tradingcardGamer attempts to inform you on how not to die as a Stage player.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aspect Guide- Stage

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GodsGiftToGrinds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GodsGiftToGrinds/gifts).



> Read this or you will understand nothing. http://archiveofourown.org/works/340777/

ASPECT GUIDE- STAGE

By tradingcardGamer

I’m going to leave a forewarning here- I have never written a guide before, and I’m probably not great at it. Unlike most other native Mind heroes, I’m not... well, like a native Mind hero. Long story. Either way, there’s little documentation about the aspect of Stage, and as SBURB is a game where not knowing kills you, this needed to be remedied. I haven’t seen much of the aspect, and it’s not a common one- I was Guard of Stage seventh session and Maid of Stage in my third session (though the game called it the “Doctor” class, for some reason), and my first session had a Smith of Stage.

Stage is a fairly balanced aspect- it has a lot of different effects, though it can be more difficult to discern which is best for you than some other aspects. It has few glitches, and one of the most significant is even beneficial. The biggest downside is that most of its buffs don’t directly buff your stats- they buff your audience effect, multiplying the potential positive- and negative- stat bonuses. The bonuses you get from them can therefore be very substantial, but it works both ways- most players are dancing on the edge of a knife, but Stage players are dancing on the edge of a freaking rapier.

Tendency: Calling their attacks

Stage is about two things- establishing arbitrary sets of rules, and being _really damn showy_. The second gets a lot of people’s goats. They’ve got a serious stage-magic/theatre thematic, and they get RP bonuses for following that. Your Seer of Stage will yell “ [Rabbit’s Hat] !” Your Page of Stage will make pithy one-liners. Your Guard of Stage _will quote Firefly_. I personally think it’s pretty cool, but that’s probably due to my tendency to do those things anyways.

Trivia: The curtains do... nothing?

You’ll notice a lot of Stage abilities have curtain effects. Due to the abysmal Offense rating for Stage, these curtains do nothing- directly. They tend to be supplementary, either by adding to the flashiness of the ability (‘sup  [Curtain Call] ) or to conceal or misdirect, like when  [Lights, Camera] covers the area to save on graphical effects while it arranges everyone into an RPG-like battle scene.

Advice: [Lights, Camera]

_Use it_. Stage is supposed to be _stability,_ and it’s pretty hard to be stable when there’s a mess of imps everywhere. You’ll probably get this ability pretty early on, and it’s one of your best tools on the stability front. They’ll get in a nice line across from you and any friends with you, and they’ll attack one at a time- though remember, this applies to you as well. Higher-level Stage players even make some flashy-looking battlefields- it varies by player, like reverberations- and they’ll force weaker enemies and abstractions like Consorts and Carapaces to stand around as an audience, which boosts the Stage player’s audience effect, even stacking with the boost they get from their passive  [The World’s A Stage] .

Glitch: Check your targets

One of the few straight up-attack Stage abilities is  [Rabbit’s Hat] . Given the horrible Offense stat of Stage, you can guess this is going the way of  [Flare] . That is not the issue. The issue is in how this attack works- it blasts a swirl of colourful curtains/tied-together handkerchiefs/whatever-you-want-to-call-them at the target, which will home in on them and wrap them up, holding them in place momentarily and damaging them. It’s marginally more useful than  [Flare] . However, if between casting and hitting the target is removed- usually by being killed or being hit by  [Ice Coffin] \- then it will retarget the closest possible target, which often ends up being _the Stage player._ Even with a low offense, that hurts, and it’s a very embarrassing thing to have to explain. There’s an old saying of “don’t do anything you don’t want to explain to the paramedics”? Around here, it’s “Don’t do anything you don’t want to explain to the guy who just kissed your corpse.”

Advice: Almost combo confusion

Like Hope, Stage has a combo of abilites, but it’s not as apparent for two reasons- you get the first ability early on, and it’s not until the late midgame that you get the second, and because the first also does something on its own. The two are called [It Aint Over] and [Until The Fat Lady Sings]. [It Aint Over] can be activated momentarily before an attack connects, and it’ll surround you with your colourful curtains of uselessness. Yay? It can help a bit to dodge, but it’s not worth the abnormally high Pluck cost. That is, before you learn [Until The Fat Lady Sings]. When you activate that while under the effect of [It Aint Over], the attack will slice or burn or whatever through the curtains, and then they’ll fall to reveal you’re still standing there, unharmed- or better yet, you burst out of them with an attack like a shoenen hero who obviously is still alive in the middle of that dust cloud. My Smith of Stage used it on a Skaian Siege Engine and the look on the pilot’s face was priceless. Once you get the feel for it, it’s an amazing defensive ability.

Glitch: High-priority fraymotif

Due to a glitch, the special fraymotif  [Trombe]  can have a higher priority than it should. It can even out-priority the Black King’s strife theme, geez. That’s not supposed to happen. It’s useful though, plus  [Trombe] is a really cool song, albeit oddly named.

On the technical side, here’s the reason- there’s a fairly obscure sidequest in the Prospit and Derse Concert Halls called “Phantom of the Orchestra”. It’s lengthy and honestly normally not worth your time. The plot is that this one carapace guy who looks like he was ripped from the pages of some mecha manga or something- big long cape that’s always flowing in a nonexistent wind, pompadour wig, massive red triangle shades, and all that jazz- wants to destroy all classic-style music in favour of pop and rock. (Tip- those accessories, especially the shades, carry a charge of Stage and I recommend all Stage players who get the chance nab them for the bonuses you get for wearing them, or for alchemy.) Surprisingly, he’s quite a dangerous boss and he _will_ kill you if you’re not prepared. A large part of this is that he sets off  [Trombe] as a boss-priority fraymotif when he shows up. The game sets the fraymotif to have that priority, and afterwards when he “repents” and gives you your little reward, he teaches you [Trombe] if you’re a Stage player. When this happens it’s supposed to subtract the proper priority from the boss priority to return it to normal. However, it actually _adds_ the priority, giving it a stupidly high priority level that can only be outclassed by a fraymotif that is a literal song being played as music.

Tendency: The spotlight’s on them

All of their Audience Effect boosts mean that these guys have to live up to expectations 24/24- even more than normal for SBURB, and the Audience reinforces these ideas. This, predictably, is stressful. These guys need to cool down and have a feelings jam every once in a while, whether they say it or not. Because with the façade they put up to keep themselves from plummeting, you can easily not know they’re going to Berserk Trigger until it’s upon you.

Warning: Stability and constants

You can’t buff a Stage player unless you’re that player. Just don’t even try- they don’t do outside change that well. It also means you can’t debuff the player, but it’s like Hope in a different way- a blessing and a curse.

Warning: I have _rules!_  


I’ve put this off long enough- this is the big thing that a lot of people don’t like about Stage players. Arbitrary sets of rules are their specialty. It’s like the worse cousin of Law. A Law player makes a rule. You can obey it or face the consequences, and it generally makes some sort of sense. A Stage player gives you an arbitrary set of rules which you follow because it just feels like that’s the way things work. Like Law, this can be used well, or poorly. A good Stage player can turn the world to a game for the party’s advantage. A bad Stage player can very easily back themselves in a corner, and then they can’t get out because a good actor doesn’t make mistakes like that, according to the Audience. Stage sucks like that.

Addenium- This affinity for arbitrary rules tends to make Stage players very understanding of SBURB’s crap. Go figure.

Addenium 2- Stage players themselves tend to establish constant rules, not magically enforced but just as arbitrary, on what they and others can do. Learn your Stage player’s rules and respect them. Nothing angers a Stage player more than breaking the script. Plus that’s the kind of stuff that’ll get gentlemanlyMannerisms on your case, and nobody wants that.

Berserk Trigger

When a Stage player hits boiling point, they’ll break out  [Showtime] . This is the biggest “rules” ability they have. With a swirl of curtains, they’ll challenge the target to a... challenge. A game, really. The loser of this game takes a massive amount of damage, enough to certainly kill most players and to destroy most enemies. This isn’t the worst of it. SBURB somehow finds a way to make this game cause massive collateral damage. I don’t care how harmless it is, the area will be blasted apart somehow even if you play a game of, I don’t know, Jenga. And everyone in the way will get the same treatment.

Note: Don’t play a trading card game. Just... trust me on this. It won’t end well.


End file.
